


From the Pews

by mansikka



Series: Under Observation [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Human Castiel, M/M, People Watching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 17:47:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9335720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mansikka/pseuds/mansikka





	

Father Matthew winces as his knees begin to protest at the uncomfortable position he's found himself in. He only came in to this sorry excuse of an office that's really no more than a crevice in the wall just behind the pillar to the left of the chancel so he can sneak himself an extra biscuit with his mid-afternoon coffee in peace, so he wouldn't have to share them with anybody else. He would share normally, Matthew thinks, defending himself and shifting a little then wondering if his discomfort is a punishment from Upstairs for his greed. Or perhaps it is for gluttony; he did already have two of the biscuits with his morning coffee after all, as well as that foot long meatball Subway with extra cheese and a slicken mess of chili sauce for his lunch. But it's a hungry kind of day, and if he's going to be tempted by Mrs. Templeton's homemade biscuits that are the perfect kind that just melt in your mouth yet are sturdy enough for a good dunking, Matthew is taking it as a sign from Up Above that the extra calories are to help him through a strenuous day doing The Lord's Work.

Matthew winces again and it's just too much; he pushes himself from the floor where he'd knelt down to retrieve a stack of hymn sheets that had fallen down behind the minuscule desk and slides them back on to their shelf, squatting a couple of times to get feeling back into his knees. He'd been disturbed in the middle of getting back up by the sound of voices coming from somewhere out in the pews and thought he'd give them a bit of privacy for a moment then got himself stuck here. Because the voices had drifted closer; as it is, the two men are now about three feet to the other side of the pillar Matthew is currently behind, and Matthew is enchanted.

He can hear a beautiful, powerful voice that idly has Matthew wondering if whoever the man is could be convinced to join their adult choir; heaven knows they could do with all the help they can get. But it's not the voice so much that has him enraptured; it is the words being spoken. The man, who he believes is, bewilderingly, named _Castiel_ if what he's hearing from the affectionate tone in the other man's voice is correct, is so knowledgeable, so full of information that only the finest religious scholars have been able to find, that Matthew finds himself quite unable to move.

For a moment, Matthew considers his own education plus his various pilgrimages around the world to broaden his horizons, smiling at them fondly but still certain he would fail if quizzed in his knowledge or put up against this Cas. But then Matthew is smiling, barely contains his laughter when Cas indignantly points out a flaw in one of the stained glass windows that he himself had noticed when he'd first arrived at the church years ago, but despite pointing it out has never had the opportunity to get corrected.

“You miss it, Cas?” Matthew hears, and his heart softens at the tone of the other man's voice, because it's filled with doubt and caution as though he's frightened he's about to have something confirmed he doesn't want to hear, but thinks he already knows.

“I miss flying,” Cas says, and Matthew surmises from that that Cas must have been some kind of missionary, “I miss helping people,” which all but confirms it to him.

“You do help people though; you help people all the time,” the other man objects, and Matthew hears what has to be a non-committal hum coming from Cas.

“I used to be more,” Cas replies, and there's a longing sigh in his voice that Matthew interprets as Cas missing his calling; perhaps this other man really does have a reason to be concerned.

“You _are_ more,” the other man counters, and Matthew's fairly sure he hears a shuffling step that suggests he's moved closer to Cas, “you're... you're pretty much everything to me, Cas. You _are_ everything; I don't —I don't know how I'd ever be without you,”

“Dean,” Matthew hears, relieved to hear a name then rolling his eyes at himself for his eavesdropping—though making no attempt to move— “you will never have to know how to be without me. I have no intention of going anywhere—”

“Would you go back?” Dean interrupts, still sounding so fearful that Matthew has only just enough presence of mind to keep himself from going out there and giving him a comforting hug. It's okay when it's one of his regular parishioners when he does that, Matthew chides himself, shaking his head, it's only right; but this man, this Dean is a complete stranger to him. He hears a sigh, a further shuffle against the floor that Matthew thinks means Cas is stepping closer to Dean and then surely that sound, that sound right there is a kiss.

Matthew holds his breath, hears the shuffle again, hears a relieved little breath and thinks it might be safe to peek. Sure enough, a discreet second's glance around the pillar confirms it, concluding that Cas is the dark haired one and Dean the light, with what he thinks must be Cas holding Dean close, physically reassuring him.

“Dean,” Matthew hears again, and Cas' voice is so laced with affection and tenderness that it's impossible for Matthew not to smile, “I cannot go back. I would not choose to go back. Why would I return to an existence where I never truly belonged, when I can stay here beside you, and live? Where I am happy, and _home_ , Dean? Why would I want anything other than that?”

Matthew ducks his head and sighs to himself as he hears what he knows is a more insistent, passionate kiss, unable to stop smiling. How anyone can argue that the love between two men is in any way wrong and against the teachings of God, when there's clearly so very much love between these two he's only been observing for a few minutes, is beyond Matthew's understanding. When he's sure he can Matthew peeks around the pillar again and smiles harder at the firm embrace he sees, nodding to himself.

“You know, Dean,” he hears then, and Cas restarts his knowledgeable lecture and correction of all that he is seeing wrong in the church; Matthew can't even be offended by what he's saying because he knows all of it is true. If they had a little more funding, raised just that little bit more at the bake sales and table tops, perhaps they could, for example, provide cushioned seats, maybe even have the heating on a little longer – Cas pointing out that _God would not wish for his worshippers to do so in such discomfort_ is a personal pet peeve of Matthew's.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, laughing, “Chuck himself would shuffle in here, all draped up in a blanket and slippers holding on to a mug of coffee and a bacon sandwich and still be complaining he was cold,” and Matthew is flummoxed, but then decides Chuck must be a friend of theirs and dismisses Dean's words as things he himself can't possibly know anything about.

There is another pause; Matthew takes as quiet a step as he can manage and sees that Cas and Dean are a little closer to the altar now, though he can still hear them because the church really is only small. He sees they're kissing yet again and huffs, ducks away and holds back from laughing all over again; Cas looks like he's kissing Dean hard enough to make a firm point about something.

“Dean,” Matthew hears a moment later when he's unnecessarily straightened up the various leaflets and handouts on the shelves where he's just returned the hymn sheets and taken a swig of his coffee, “tell me. You are troubled. What is on your mind?”

“Nothing—”

“Dean,” Matthew hears then, even more insistent, and knows without looking that it's followed up with yet another kiss. These two are impossible, he thinks, smiling just as hard as he had done that time when the choir boys had been peacocking around that group of Girl Scouts when they'd sheltered in the chapel during a storm, and handed out their cookies in thanks.

“Isn't it, uh... blasphemous to be doing this kinda stuff in here?” Dean blasts back a little breathlessly moments later; Matthew pictures him glancing around the church in caution and has to hold in a chuckle.

“Dean,” Cas replies, sounding thoroughly amused, “this is a house of worship; a place of love. Were we to do either here—”

Matthew freezes up, alarmed, hopes they really don't decide to do _that_ just feet away from him. One, because he'd be mortified for intruding and two, Mrs. Templeton's due any time soon to reclaim the Tupperware she'd put her biscuits in this morning. She's eighty-six, and though she's about as liberal as they come, Matthew can't imagine her heart handling the sight of any naked flesh aside from that of a child being christened. Besides; where would they do it? The altar's not exactly sturdy and they're far too tall to have any comfort in the pews. The stone walls are much too cold to —

“—neither would be a sin,” Cas finishes with, and Matthew slumps in relief at the obvious teasing in his voice that he hopes means that's really all he's doing, teasing.

“You sure you're not making that up?” Dean asks then, full of suspicion. Matthew imagines a shoulder shrug from Cas, and an eye roll from Dean, yet he's only seen the barest glimpses of their faces so can only make assumptions; Matthew chides himself then for his overactive imagination and covers his eyes.

“I am not,” Cas denies, though is obviously smiling, “you, however, are changing the subject, Dean. Tell me what you are thinking,”

Matthew holds his breath along, he assumes, with Cas, waiting for Dean to speak. There is another moment of silence, then a deep, long sigh, and Dean is clearing his throat.

“When we were... yesterday. When we were in that veterans nursing home interviewing witnesses,” Dean begins, and Matthew starts speculating that Dean and Cas must be some kind of law enforcement or something, though nothing local; he doesn't recall seeing them around here at all, “you... you sat with that guy—”

“Sergeant Major Wilkes,” Cas interrupts with; Matthew pictures Dean nodding his head.

“Yeah, him. Heard you talking to him, Cas,”

“We were, as you just pointed out, interviewing witnesses,” Cas retorts with, sounding even more amused than before.

“Well yeah, we were,” Dean agrees, clearly embarrassed, “but I mean... after. When you were just sat talking, you were—sounded like you were trading war stories,”

“I was attempting to relate to Sergeant Major Wilkes by telling anecdotes of my own experiences within the garrison. He seemed quite upset,”

“Yeah—yeah I get that; I do,” Dean agrees, and if Matthew doesn't hear him kissing Cas yet again as he says it...

In his head Matthew changes Cas' former profession from missionary to army doctor, and another notch of approval has his head nodding.

“However?”

“I just... I don't know, Cas. Got me wondering. Some of the stuff you were saying—”

“You believed was an indication that I wanted to be elsewhere?” Cas concludes, sighing as though he's bemused by Dean's thought process.

“I don't know, Cas. You... when we got outside. You stood in front of that statue, the one with the soldier in the arms of that angel and just stared at it for ages. Then you asked to come here today and I just... I just—”

“I am going nowhere,” Cas replies, firm and stern as though he's attempting to make himself very, very clear, “I have no desire to return, Dean. I am here. I am _home_ ; where else is there for me to belong?”

Dean's sigh of relief is loud enough to send a slight echo around the altar, and when Matthew peers around the corner yet again he finds Cas holding on to Dean tight. There follows a few quiet mumbles to each other that Matthew doesn't hear, and for wanting to hear them chides himself, retreating another step inside the office hoping they don't see him as they pass.

A loud, raucous chuckle echoes out then, and Matthew's gripping his hands in fists in an attempt not to take yet another look at what's happening just out of his sight.

“Well, Cas,” he hears Dean say, “I might not chant _holy, holy, holy_ at you all the time, but it's not like I don't call your name every time you —” which is when Matthew receives an education about things he never expected he'd be hearing in the holy walls of his own church—or anywhere else—the blood rushing in his ears muffling Dean and Cas' footsteps as they walk closer to him.

“—don't matter; you're still an angel to me, Cas,” Dean finishes with, and Matthew has to cover his mouth for the gasp of surprised breath that forces its way out at hearing the language shift from sinful to sweet.

“Dean, I believe were Sam here, he would be telling you that you are a _sap_ ,” Matthew hears just as Dean and Cas are passing him by, oblivious to his being there; Matthew's eyes train in on Cas' right hand giving an air quote down by his side as though it is some sort of vestigial response, and assumes his other hand is firmly in Dean's as they walk.

Matthew listens to the fading footsteps followed by the opening and closing of the church door and allows himself to laugh more vocally. He shakes his head, going over Cas and Dean's conversation in his head once again, jotting down notes for both Cas' words on certain religious events he wants to refresh his memory on, and his unintentional suggestions for amendments in the church. Then spots the final two biscuits in the bottom of the Tupperware tub and gives a shrug, cramming them both into his mouth in quick succession before walking out himself, coffee cup clutched in hand.

 


End file.
